The present application relates generally to user-refillable liquid dispensing containers and, more particularly, to user-refillable liquid dispensing containers which permit the dispensing of liquid in any orientation of the container.
Typical user-refillable liquid dispensing containers, such as spray bottles commonly associated with glass cleaners and the like, must be oriented in such a manner as to ensure that the feed tube connected to the spray mechanism is continually submerged in the liquid within the container in order to deliver the liquid to the spray mechanism. To permit substantial emptying of the container, the open end of the feed tube is disposed close to the bottom of the container. Such liquid dispensing containers thus cannot be used in any orientation, for example inverted, wherein the open end of the feed tube will not be submerged within the liquid and thus not capable of delivering the liquid to the spray mechanism as required.
It is known that by dynamically adjusting the capacity of a liquid container, liquid can be adequately delivered to the spray mechanism in any orientation. Prior methods have used spring-assisted pistons disposed within the container to accomplish this. In such a construction, a spring causes the piston to maintain a constant pressure on the remaining liquid while also adjusting the capacity of the container. However, a limitation of such an invention is that the spring may cause excessive pressure on the liquid because it does not rely on natural vacuum-assisted movement of the piston when the liquid is dispensed.